The Environmental Protection Agency can do a better job on “the way we handle pesticide regulation,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a speech at the Nixon Presidential Library last week.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to exempt from its regulation some biotech crops that are genetically engineered to be toxic to damaging insects and other plant pests. 

A new bill would ban two widely used classes of pesticides and allow citizens to petition the Environmental Protection Agency for designations of pesticides as “dangerous,” which could lead to suspension of their registrations.

CropLife America President and CEO Chris Novak says the nation's crop protection sector is battered, but not broken after enduring a growing season that took place in the midst of a pandemic that stalled many other facets of the economy. 

Agriculture in Europe and the United States may be diverging even more sharply in coming years. The European Union has adopted a series of sweeping goals for slashing the use of pesticides, antibiotics and fertilizer – and converting at least 25% of EU agriculture to organic over the next decade.

The European Commission has ambitious new plans to cut farmers’ use of pesticides, fertilizer and antimicrobials while also boosting organic production over the next decade.

Nearly one in every two American farmers would be interested in being paid to help reduce climate change, even though the climate issue is a relatively low priority and producers aren’t necessarily worried about its impact on their operations, according to the latest Agri-Pulse poll of U.S. agriculture.

EPA’s new method for determining how to evaluate the effects of pesticides on endangered species has been greeted with praise from the agricultural industry for offering a clear path forward for future evaluations, but sharp criticism from environmentalists for narrowing the universe of interagency reviews.

President Donald Trump’s election-year budget proposes $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, including $25 billion earmarked for rural America, while reprising recommendations for slashing farm programs and nutrition assistance.

The Environmental Protection Agency is approving the first pesticides for application on industrial hemp fields and proposing to allow continued use of atrazine herbicide on corn and other crops.